The was the Next Gen From male tennis already started and this Sunday that talented litter scored a new victory in the Californian desert by the hand of an intractable Jack Draper. The 23 -year -old Briton shouted in the Masters 1000 de Indian Wells With an unlegiable 6-2 and 6-2 victory against Danish Holger Runehe conquered his first title in that category – and the most important of his career – and became barely in the fourth player born from 2000 onwards to raise one of the trophies of that level of tournaments, the second most important in the circuit ATP Behind the Grand Slams.
Draper accompanies in that select group A Carlos Alcarazowner of five titles (Indian Wells 2023 and 2024, Madrid 2022 and 2023 and Miami 2022); Jannik Sinnerwhich accumulates four (Toronto 2023 and Miami, Cincinnati and Shanghai 2024) and Rune himself, who won one (Paris 2022).
He also sneaked into his name between great historical players of Great Britain. The one born in Sutton, a city located south of London, is the fifth British to win a 1000 masters, after Andy Murray (14), Greg Rusedski, Tim Henman y Cameron Norrie (one each). And the second to shout champion in Indian Wells, after Norrie’s triumph in 2021.
And this Monday will also be the second youngest British to get into the Top 10, after Murray. The Scotsman, who helped him (and continues to help him) a lot in his career, broke that barrier in April 2007 with 19 years and 11 months, when he appeared 10 °. Draper will jump to the seventh place with 23 years and two months; improving what was done by Henman, who arrived at that elite in August 1998 with 23 years and 11 months, Rusedski, in September 1997 with 24 years and 9 months, and Norrie, in April 2022 with 26 years and seven months.
“It’s amazing. I didn’t expect it,” Draper said. “I’ve been working a lot for a long time and I am very grateful and happy to be able to play here, that my body is healthy and feeling goodly. something much better.
“I feel that I sincerely deserve it. The amount of adversities I have passed, the amount of sacrifices, the amount of time that all the people around me have dedicated to me and hard work. It is a very emotional sensation to know everything you have passed and what you have invested, and be here now to say that tomorrow I will be the number 7 of the world, I cannot express how much it means for me,” he added.
Draper advanced firmly in the Californian contest from the debut to the title. As soon as he gave a set, in the semifinal that won him 6-1, 0-6 and 6-4 to Alcaraz, number three in the world and who was looking for his third crown to the thread in the Coachella Valle. In the first round he had gone down to the Brazilian JOAO FONSECAthe new male tennis jewel, then defeated the American Jenson Brooksby and went down to two other stores, Taylor Fritzranking room, in eighths and Ben Shelton11 ° preclassified, in rooms. And after his enormous victory against Carlitosdominated Rune on a court in a final that will remain in statistics books as one of the shortest in the history of the tournament.
Just 69 minutes needed the British to bend the Danish, two more minutes than he had used Roger Federer to win Henman 6-3 and 6-3 in the 2004 definition.
When Rune’s cross upstairs went wide and sentenced his triumph, Draper looked at his bank with one more expression of relief than happiness. And after greeting his defeated, he knelt over the violet cement, he hit the court twice with the palms of his hands and then raised his fists to heaven, with his eyes closed, like trying to record everything he had lived in his memory. And it costs you too much to get to that place.
World number 7 and finalist Wimbledon 2018 In his Junior stage, Draper seemed called to be the heir of Murray. Although his jump to professionalism was not easy.
“As a boy I was always small. Then I grew a lot when I had about 16 or 17. I had many ups and downs The Guardian.
“It is really difficult to go through the futures and the challengers. It is brutal. It is not Wimbledon or Indian Wells, you are not going to those cute places where everything is incredible. You have to go alone to a place for three or four weeks. When I was young I thought that the sport was very different from reality. So much of the work for me was to assimilate that I was not going to wear it in Wimbledon and win it. For a long time to get to this point, “he added.
Finally he managed to make the leap and was one of the great revelations of the 2022 season, which started in the 265th step and ended in the 42nd, after making semifinal in Eastbourne and score two victories against Top 10, in front of Stefanos tsitsipas (5th) On your way to the rooms of Montreal and in front of Happy Auger-aliassime (8th) to get into the third round of the US Open.
Excitedly, he started 2023. But the injuries slowed his evolution. First a muscular problem in the abdomen, which forced him to retire during his eighth duel of Indian Wells against Alcaraz. Then a tear on the left shoulder, for which he had to leave his first round party of Roland Garros ante Tomás Etcheverry and that also lost the entire grass tour and score a new decline in the second round of Winston Salemin August. With little competition for almost six months, he left Top 100 and disappeared from the first planes of tennis.
He returned in 2024, determined to recover the lost terrain. And with more regularity and a great level, he could be a protagonist within a court. The titles in Stuttgart y Single (the first two of his career) and the semifinal of the US Open (He lost Son Sinner) were the highest points of a year in which he had some physical problems. Retired in February in Acapulco with breathing difficulties and in September in Tokiowith an abdominal discomfort, the week before the celebration in Vienna.
“I hate being the guy who is injured a lot. It’s extremely hard to play and lose. I feel mentally destroyed. I hope ‘MR. Lesions’ Remove now. I want to get rid of physical problems and be sure to play five sets in a Grand Slam without discomfort, “he was excited after that consecration in the Austrian capital.
However, at the start of this 2025 -which began in the 15th position -, the ghosts of the injuries appeared again. Hip tendonitis, where he had suffered chronic discomfort for a long time, made him get off the United Cup and retire after the eighth duel of Australia before Alcaraz.
“You’re going to arrive where you deserve. Recover soon, Jack,” the Murcian wrote in the camera lens after that game, in mid -January.
Almost two months later, Draper took revenge of Spanish in the semis of Indian Wells and then defeated Rune to lift the most important trophy of his career and get into the Top 10. And, as Carlitos had predicted, he reached that place he deserves, the world tennis elite.
“I lost the first round of this tournament last year, so I could not enjoy it a lot. When I knelt after winning, I tried to look around and taste everything, experience that intense feeling of being the winner, something for which I have worked so much,” said the British at the awards ceremony. And he closed: “The truth, I did not expect to be here today. All the work I have done in recent years seems to be impacting the great scenarios and I cannot express it with words. You never know when the time will come to you.”